Thank you for doing the work of reading and summarizing this! I do not read a lot of theory, queer or otherwise, specifically because without someone else's analysis to go along with it I find myself getting lost, so I really appreciate seeing people do that kind of analysis.
Then there’s this tricky idea about the performativity of the past: “rather than being static and fixed, the past does things” (28). I think he means that when we read the words of the past – the manifesto of the poem – they act on us. They do work in our minds, potentially seeding ideas about what the future could be. This is really poignant to me coming off discussions I've seen in about how queer people growing up post-AIDS do not have the same kind of community and community elders that older generations might have had. I've seen a push lately for young queer people to get back in touch with art and other work that queer communities were doing before this massive loss to the culture as a way of connecting with and forming new communities now, and to me, this speaks to that in a really nice way.
In some ways our present might be an even better example of the idea that “queerness has not yet arrived.” I see on Instagram and TikTok every day people performing and proliferating an incredibly creative multitude of genders, personae, desires, and affiliations across identities and experiences. Yet those performances are also aspirational – many of the performers are isolated and atomized, and frustrated or captivated by the technologies they rely on. And these ways of being are provisional: at the same time as this incredible flowering, Texas is doing its best to destroy trans children and their families, and many other states are doing the same. The people doing this beautiful work of becoming and manifesting queerness are often isolated, tired, and scared. YES! This is very astute. Social media lets queer people see each other and hopefully can be the starting point for deeper connection, to alleviate the isolation that we feel, but we can't yet know what the queer communities of tomorrow are going to look like because we first have to be able to imagine an end to the isolation that makes connecting over the internet necessary. Social media helping queer people to connect across an atomized culture is solving a problem that social media helped to create in the first place, I think. Increased isolation under capitalism leads to increased reliance on technologies that allow us to connect leads to increased willingness by those in power to erode the rights to free time, social spaces, and privacy leads to social media being even more necessary for people to connect, you know?
I don't feel that I'm articulate enough to comment on any more of this or in greater detail so I'll thank you again for sharing this book and your thoughts, it was very interesting and insightful to read and I'll definitely be following along in the future even if I don't have anything to add to a comment or discussion. Bi-weekly seems like it would be more than enough.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2022-03-02 07:44 pm (UTC)Then there’s this tricky idea about the performativity of the past: “rather than being static and fixed, the past does things” (28). I think he means that when we read the words of the past – the manifesto of the poem – they act on us. They do work in our minds, potentially seeding ideas about what the future could be. This is really poignant to me coming off discussions I've seen in about how queer people growing up post-AIDS do not have the same kind of community and community elders that older generations might have had. I've seen a push lately for young queer people to get back in touch with art and other work that queer communities were doing before this massive loss to the culture as a way of connecting with and forming new communities now, and to me, this speaks to that in a really nice way.
In some ways our present might be an even better example of the idea that “queerness has not yet arrived.” I see on Instagram and TikTok every day people performing and proliferating an incredibly creative multitude of genders, personae, desires, and affiliations across identities and experiences. Yet those performances are also aspirational – many of the performers are isolated and atomized, and frustrated or captivated by the technologies they rely on. And these ways of being are provisional: at the same time as this incredible flowering, Texas is doing its best to destroy trans children and their families, and many other states are doing the same. The people doing this beautiful work of becoming and manifesting queerness are often isolated, tired, and scared. YES! This is very astute. Social media lets queer people see each other and hopefully can be the starting point for deeper connection, to alleviate the isolation that we feel, but we can't yet know what the queer communities of tomorrow are going to look like because we first have to be able to imagine an end to the isolation that makes connecting over the internet necessary. Social media helping queer people to connect across an atomized culture is solving a problem that social media helped to create in the first place, I think. Increased isolation under capitalism leads to increased reliance on technologies that allow us to connect leads to increased willingness by those in power to erode the rights to free time, social spaces, and privacy leads to social media being even more necessary for people to connect, you know?
I don't feel that I'm articulate enough to comment on any more of this or in greater detail so I'll thank you again for sharing this book and your thoughts, it was very interesting and insightful to read and I'll definitely be following along in the future even if I don't have anything to add to a comment or discussion. Bi-weekly seems like it would be more than enough.